Iron Age Coins: Classifying Prehistoric Coinage in Britain

Sir John was a numismatist (coin specialist) before he became an archaeologist. His interest in identifying, classifying and recording coins found in Britain led him to develop skills and techniques that were of immense value to him as an archaeologist.

His major contribution to the study of the Iron Age coinage in Britain was his empirical approach. This led him to take a sceptical attitude towards the then current interpretations of the coinage based on myth and the few surviving ancient texts. His decision to base the study of Iron Age coins on their distribution pattern in Britain was innovative and largely ignored by later scholars for half a century. Today it forms the basis of the attribution of coins to given areas, and by extension groups of people.